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Female fans normally know more facts about what’s going on than men do anyway. I’d say they’re a more intelligent fan on top of that. They normally know more about what we’ve done than we know about what we’ve done. --- Tony Stewart

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There are female fans who take apart engines and will take you apart if you have a problem with that; who are drawn to the danger and mystery of the sport; who watch races on TV to witness pure passion and unscripted emotion; who love the camaraderie of these family-friendly festivals; who feel the nervous anxiety of the lip-biting wives atop the pit boxes. --- Andrew Giangola “The Weekend Starts on Wednesday”

In 11 starts at Pocono, Montoya has one top five and four top 10s. The driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet finished 32nd in this race last year. So far this season, Montoya has just two top-10 finishes – his best finish is a couple of eighth places. He is currently ranked 21st in the point standings and heads into Sunday’s race with a career-best 17th-place finish at Pocono.

This is Montoya’s first pole since April 2011 at Richmond. The pole-sitter is currently winless and has yet to earn a top-five finish.

During his post-qualifying press conference Montoya explained the progress of his relationship with crew chief Chris Heroy and the need to keeping working toward success. “Yeah, it’s not so much momentum, but it’s work,” Montoya said. “We’ve really got to keep working; keep working on the cars and keep understanding what we need to do. You’ve got to remember that my crew chief (Heroy) is new at this. He’s a really smart guy and he’s got a lot of really smart people here, but it’s how do you put everything together; and we’ve been doing a really good job at it. So we’ll see.”

Hamlin will start from the front row. The driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota is no stranger to success at Pocono – he has four wins in 13 races, two poles, eight top fives and nine top 10s.

Following his qualifying run, Hamlin explained how his success has rubbed off on his teammates. On whether the repave might impact his success at Pocono, Hamlin said, “I don’t know. It’s been a few years since we’ve won here. We’ve been in contention just about every time we’ve been at this racetrack and obviously some of that information transferred over to our teammates and they’ve been the ones to beat here lately. So, we feel like we have a decent FedEx Ground Toyota, but not the car that I was hoping for this weekend.